Thursday, January 5, 2012

Home is where the heart is, if you can find it.

House numbers.

I get lost. A lot. Sometimes my phone lies to me about directions when I look them up in my maps app, it does, I swear, it’s like apple has a secret agenda to get me into the most awkward scary neighborhoods ever. So who came up with this numbers on houses thing and why are they odds and evens on opposite sides?

Well as it turns out, it was the French….wow, I totally wasn’t expecting that, no offense frenchy mc French folks, it’s just well, you know you don’t exactly have the best track record for being productive… but in any case it was 1512 when they decided to give homes numbers in order to be able to locate them easier. They were the ones who came up with this odd/ even scheme that is commonly used.

But did you know that apparently that’s not how they do it all over the world. In some Italian cities red numbers are used for business and blue or black numbers for homes or apartments, yea like that wouldn’t be confusing… so on a single block you can have two “234” one a business and one a home…and even still for some rural English homes, numbers don’t even exist, instead they just name your whole home like “Marcela Manor” ….awesome!

In any case other countries do some more complicated stuff. Like seriously weird things. Interested go here:

So today, grateful that I live somewhere that’s less complicated to get lost in even though I still do…and alsoFrench – 1, other countries – 0 …. This seems like a pretty common sense idea. Glad they can add something to their list of accomplishments. Kudos France!